Heroic Measures
By: Alicia Tolbert


Doctor's calling out for heroic measures
Says I just may not survive
I chuckle unto him
I laugh
This here is luxury, my demise

My liver's failing
My spleen's been let
That drinking and gambling
Raised quite some debt

I need new eyes
The doctor's saying
He's saying my eyesight's
Failing

Need a transplant
The things I've seen
The things they've done
The wages of sin
I've looked upon
If my eyes ain't failed yet
I doubt this business of
Transplantation
Will bring from me a lamentation
Pass the new peepers this way

Doctor say my breath is
Indicating
Maybe cancer
Maybe worse
And stop misbehaving
What my breath tells me
Is I have an exit
For all the bile and
Times I been messed with

It says I'm still alive
And kicking you softly
With this breath that's
Raised hackles when I been done wrong
With this breath that's
Crawled around and kissed butt to
Get my boy into school
With this breath that sighed over the last one
That swore I was the fool

Doctor say
I've lost my memory
Short term's gone
Long term's goin'
What I remember
Is loving this life
Past the siren's blowing
Raising them kids while
Bucking and hoeing
I defy and twist
At his prognosis
Say pass my gin
And I'll forget you again

I may go blind
I cannot hear
I breathe cold
And raise their fear
But three things will never be took from this here
The way I feel life
The way I smell life
And the way I taste this final and last laugh



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